Eliot Spitzer
Eliot Spitzer
Eliot Laurence Spitzeris an American politician who served as the 54th Governor of New York from 2007 until his resignation on March 17, 2008. Following his eight year term as Attorney General of New York, Spitzer was elected governor in 2006, succeeding three-term incumbent George Pataki. Soon after taking office, Spitzer was embroiled in a prostitution scandal that culminated in his resignation. Following his resignation, he hosted a short-lived program, Viewpoint with Eliot Spitzer on Current TV...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth10 June 1959
CityNew York City, NY
CountryUnited States of America
I do not believe that politics in the long run is about individuals. It is about ideas.
Why does it have to be politics? Is there a dynamism to that world and a theoretical capacity to do things that draws many talented people? Absolutely. Are there other ways to be involved and lead an interesting life? Of course.
As someone with a deep faith in competition and the market, I also know that markets only work with tough enforcement of the rules that guarantee competition and fair play - and that the pressure to break those rules only gets stronger as the amount of money involved gets larger.
Health care reform, the marquee legislative accomplishment of the Obama administration's first term, was passed before we entered the world of divided government.
In 2007, when I was governor of New York, I proposed that our state once again permit undocumented immigrants to obtain a driver's license. To say the proposal lit a firestorm in the political arena is an understatement.
Imagine if the pension funds and endowments that own much of the equity in our financial services companies demanded that those companies revisit the way mortgages were marketed to those without adequate skills to understand the products they were being sold. Management would have to change the way things were done.
Imagine if investors in Wal-Mart really cared about bribery at that company's overseas operations or safety standards at its overseas manufacturing plants. If investors pulled their capital, corporate leaders would have to respond.
I think President Obama could have handled politics and policies differently. But he has been decisive, strong, and consistent - important qualities in a president. Mitt Romney is indeed an Etch A Sketch, the antithesis of leadership.
I don't think Michael Bloomberg would say that his greatest skill is delivering the speech. He would say he's more of a nuts-and-bolts mayor-picking up the trash, dealing with the school system.
Don't reward bad behavior. It is one of the first rules of parenting. During the financial cataclysm of 2008, we said it differently. When we bailed out banks that had created their own misfortune, we called it a 'moral hazard,' because the bailout absolved the bank's bad acts and created an incentive for it to make the same bad loans again.
As one who was a prosecutor for many years, I can tell you that having a tape recording of interrogations would help everybody. It would make clear if there had been improper pressure exerted on a defendant or witness, and it would also protect the interrogating officer from false claims that such pressure had been brought to bear.
A significant piece of the wealth that the NFL owners garner is a result of the enormous TV revenues they get - and those revenues are supported by a legislatively granted exemption from the antitrust laws that has been made applicable to sports leagues, primarily the NFL.
Tax rates for the wealthy should revert to Clinton-era levels, both because it is necessary for long-term deficit reduction and because fairness dictates it. Moreover, there is no proof that higher marginal rates dissuade investment, all the rhetoric from the Right notwithstanding.
Some say that I should settle down, go slower and not push so hard, so quickly for such transformational change. To them, I say that you misunderstand the size of the problems we face, the strength of the status quo and the urgency of the people's desire for change.